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Company Sued, Loses For Not Using Patented Tech
bdcrazy writes "A man was recently awarded $1.5M in a jury trial after his hand was injured by a Ryobi table saw. The saw did not include the patented 'Saw Stop' technology that the plaintiff argued would have prevented all the problems." 60 similar cases have now been filed nationwide. TechDirt makes the argument that this jury decision is completely crazy: "If the government is going to require companies to use a patented technology, it seems that the only reasonable solution is to remove the patent on it and allow competition in the market place." If the decision stands, not only will the price of table saws go way up, but other hungry patent-holders will probably get a gleam in their eye.
Slashdot and the Law: Unsafe at any speed.
It's been years since I was in Torts class, but this is a product liability suit... NOT a patent suit. The only reason the "patent" is being bandied about is because this guy's argument boils down to this: Riyobi knew (or should have known) that there was a safer way to make the saw. Riyobi presumably did not choose the safer way. Therefore, Riyobi should be liable for my injury.
Note that this argument by itself is nowhere near sufficient to win a product liability lawsuit. For example, it's easy to say that you could make any car safer by preventing it from going over 5mph, but just throwing that fact out in court by itself will never win a product liability case. Usually there are lots of extra factors like industry standards and cost-benefit analyzes that are argued over by lots of expert witnesses. Could Riyobi have "reasonably" adopted the improved design? etc. etc.
The ONLY reason that a patent has anything important to do with this case is that patents are, by definition, publicly available and it makes an easy argument to show that Riyobi knew or could have known about what was disclosed in the patent. Also, there is NO REQUIREMENT that Riyobi would HAVE to use the safety system described in the patent. Instead, the safety system is just an example of what is known, and Riyobi could argue that its own systems were just as good or even better. The patent was likely just one data point of MANY data points used to establish what a "reasonable" safety system would look like. One interesting point would be to see if Riyobi itself is the assignee of the patent....
In a nutshell: Don't read too much into this case. Like most legal cases discussed on Slashdot, somebody saw a buzzword like "patent" and wanted to score points with the mouthbreathing site admins.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
Actually, yes.
I'm not tense. I'm just terribly, terribly, alert.
It is a patent issue because the flesh detection technology is patented and the patent holder wants a very high licensing fee, otherwise saw manufacturers would have adopted the technology years ago.
Several saw manufacturers have been negotiating with the patent holder for years, but the last I time I read about it (3 years ago), the patent holder was asking the equivalent of half of the gross profit on every saw sold. Needless to say that is the equivalent of a lot of law suits.
On the other hand, this definitely qualifies as frivolous law suit. Power saws are dangerous, and if you don't know how to use one safely, you shouldn't be playing with them.
I haven't bought a saw recently, but I don't think Saw-Stop is standard. (In fact, the point of the linked article seems to be that it is not, but the creator thinks it should be.)
If you bought a car without an airbag installed and they told you that that model didn't have an airbag, unless it's against the law not to have one, you're SOL. If you bought it and, as you said, they had simply failed to install it, then you you have a case because now we're talking about something that they claimed to have and didn't.
These kinds of decisions do tend to have that effect, though. Any future table-saw company who does not include the technology will be in an even worse position than Ryobi, because not only did they fail to include available safety technology, but they willfully failed to do so even after another company was held liable for injuries resulting from the same omission.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
As the tip of the blade hooks into the loop of the chain mail glove and tries to pull it, and your hand inside it, through the slot in the table and being partially successful, you'll wish you'd just cut your finger off.
Some tools are much safer without gloves. Drill Presses and vertical band saws are in this category.
This sentence no verb.
These are one of the most dangerous tools you can use. Not because they're particularly dangerous themselves, but because people like to cut their thumbs off when they use them.
A chainmail glove reduces the chance of this.
I cant say that I have ever seen anyone use a chainmail glove with a tablesaw, hobbyist or professional. A average table saw would be able to cut right through chainmail. Ef. There are special blades you can use when cutting lumber with nails in it. It doesn't even flinch when cutting an 8d nail. So its back to basics:
Pushsticks to keep your fingers away, featherboards to reduce kickback,common sense and RESPECT for the machine!
From TFA: "Osorio's legal team, ... pointed to SawStop's sales as evidence that the technology is not only mechanically feasible but financially viable"
SawStop's cheapest saw is $1600. To get the saw working again after a stoppage costs $169 in parts. That alone is more than I paid for my table saw, brand new. These a**holes are basically trying to destroy woodworking as a hobby. Yes, saws are dangerous, that's why I'm always incredibly careful when I use one.
This tech is great for schools or shops where saws are used all the time, but to insist that no saw be sold without this technology is nuts.
Never let a lack of data get in the way of a good rant.
A consumer grade table saw can go for as little as a couple of hundred bucks. You'd be marking a $500 saw up 10% just for the patent royalties, which would probably equal or exceed the manufacturer's profit on the saw... and for something like a sub-$100 Harbor Freight piece of junk, the markup would be absurd.
Note, I went to the website and watched the videos. This appears to be an extremely clever invention, certainly deserving of patent protection, and the world should beat a path to their door for building a better mousetrap. But I disagree that licensing their patent should be compulsory.
What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
I have a Ryobi table saw and it's perfectly fine for what it is. Would I use it to build a house? No. It's not meant for that. Is it a good-value table saw for cutting up the odd sheet of plywood or ripping the odd 2x6? Absolutely. It's a basic, easy-to-use light-duty table saw that I use 'now and again'. You need to buy products that align with the purpose for which they're intended, and Ryobi fits that niche nicely. They're not more, nor do they claim to be.